On December 1, a new rule will likely go into effect at the Justice Department that may expand law enforcement agencies’ authority to remotely hack into computers and take what data they find there during an investigation. Lawmakers have been pressing the DOJ for more information on the rule, specifically why the agency wants this authority, and what it plans to do with it, but they now say the folks in Justice are only providing non-answers. [More]

Elections always bring change; some more so than others. With yesterday’s results in the box and tallied, we now know that we are expecting not only a Trump administration next January, but also to have both houses of Congress and the White House all aligned under control of the same political party. That means that for at least two years, until the next midterm elections, the party in charge — in this case, the Republicans — has the ability to push through changes to policy and law, and we can expect it to do so. [More]

Even consumers who aren’t necessarily very technically-minded have at least a vague sense that an encrypted site is safer to use than one that isn’t. But encryption, alas, is never a permanent cure-all. And that’s why it’s troubling that new research has found it’s easier than anyone thought to put a backdoor into internet encryption that could let any big, surveillaince-minded entity (good morning, NSA) have a listen. [More]

At the same time as their counterparts at the Justice Department are trying to circumvent smartphone security, the folks at the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission are talking to manufacturers about how to make these devices more secure. [More]

If you’re arrested or a suspect in a crime, the police can’t force you to remember the combination to your safe, or the passcode for your iPhone. But what if that phone can be unlocked with biometric data like a fingerprint? Does the ready access to this information give law enforcement an easy way to open secure devices, or would that be a violation of your constitutional rights? [More]

As you may have heard, on Friday afternoon the U.S. Department of Justice backed off its efforts to compel Apple to aid in unlocking a criminal suspect’s iPhone — for the second time in only a few weeks. While some have heralded this as a significant victory for Apple (or at least as a loss for the government), it’s really just a tiny, unresolved spat in what looks to become a protracted legal battle for both sides. [More]

Usually, D.C. moves slowly. There’s a kind of plodding, methodical rhythm to Congress and the federal agencies, and very little turns on a dime. So it stands out that less than 48 hours after introducing a bill into the Senate, over 42,000 people have already objected to basically everything about it.

In February, while a federal court in California was pondering whether or not to compel Apple’s assistance in unlocking a terrorist’s iPhone, a federal magistrate judge in New York ruled — in a drug-related case — that the government couldn’t force Apple to defeat its own encryption. In spite of that ruling, the Justice Department now tells the court that it is going ahead with its effort to require Apple’s help. [More]

The public fight Apple and the FBI recently had over one particular phone may have resolved itself, but the national discussion over encryption is just warming up. Now there’s a bipartisan effort to make a decision wandering through Congress… but the politics of it say that this particular bill is going to go nowhere fast.

Even though the FBI has figured out a work-around that — for now — allows the agency to bypass an iPhone’s encryption, the debate still continues about which is more important: privacy for all consumers, or ready-but-limited access for law enforcement? Today, Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp made it clear which side of that argument it comes down on. [More]

While the debate about encryption (brought to the foreground by the recent fight between Apple and the FBI) continues to rage on, at least one U.S. senator has clearly had enough, and is ready to draw a line in the sand. [More]

One of Apple’s biggest concerns about being compelled to assist the FBI in bypassing the security measures on the iPhone was that it would be just the first of many requests to get around the device’s encryption, thus increasing the odds of this work-around getting into the hands of hackers. Now comes news that the FBI — which was able to crack the iPhone lockdown without Apple’s assistance — is offering to unlock Apple devices for other law enforcement agencies. [More]